Credit to Humboldt County Sheriff and Director of Emergency Services Mike Downey for declaring a local emergency on Tuesday. County roads need all the help they can get. As we reported on Wednesday, the Feb. 6 to Feb. 8 storm has left Humboldt C...

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Editorials

As you very likely noticed, Saturday’s edition arrived more than a few hours late, thanks to the unfortunate destruction of a power pole outside our office Friday night. We would like to thank each and every one of you for your patience. While a few of the messages we received Saturday morning were fraught with frustration at the unexplained absence of the morning paper, most if not all of you lent us a sympathetic ear as we explained the cause of the delay: That a hit-and-run...

|on 01/31/2015

Editorials

Humboldt State has the only Native American Studies baccalaureate degree program in the California State University system. It should be a beacon for the North Coast — and the nation. Instead, HSU this week found itself again the target of another student protest demanding that the program and its champions be treated better by the university’s administration — a not uncommon occurrence in recent years. Thanks to university policy and federal and state law...

|on 01/24/2015

Editorials

From 5-8 p.m. tonight at the Wharfinger Building in Eureka, the public has an opportunity afforded to few citizens of nations worldwide: the chance to question its defenders. Make no mistake: While we recognize and honor the sacrifices and service of the men and women of our nation’s Armed Forces make every day to ensure our security, we would be poor citizens indeed if we did not recognize and honor the principles that each has sworn an oath to defend. The Constitution...

|on 01/15/2015

Editorials

Thursday morning, we breathed a sigh of relief as a chase on Highway 101 ended without reported injury. It left us with some unsettling questions, however. “Turns out that this vehicle, a white Toyota 4Runner, has been associated with some break-ins and burglaries,” Humboldt County sheriff’s Lt. Wayne Hanson told the Times-Standard earlier this week. “Some citizens in Salmon Creek near Summerville Road (near Miranda) saw it and tried boxing it in near a gate...

|on 01/12/2015

Editorials

Whether you’re a “glass half full” or “glass half empty” sort, we can all breathe a sigh of relief that in 2015, we have a glass and that there’s some water in it ... ... especially in light of the legal opinion released Friday by the Department of Interior. After only 60 years, the federal government has at long last acknowledged its annual promise of 50,000 acre-feet of Trinity Reservoir water to Humboldt County and downstream water users.

|on 01/03/2015

Editorials

Sometimes it seems like it’s been a long year full of bad news. Suffice it to say that it came as a relief last week to see Humboldt County rise up and meet bad news with generosity. On Monday, a man died in a fiery crash on Highway 101. The death of 47-year-old Leggett resident Steven Ray Castillo would be horrible news in and of it itself, but it was all the more horrible to learn that the flames also destroyed thousands of pounds of supplies — $25,000 worth —...

|on 12/27/2014

Editorials

Yes, money doesn’t grow on trees. No, you can’t round up people and bus them out of town. And homeless people are indeed people. We can all agree to start here, can’t we? Which is why the Eureka City Council’s unanimous vote on Tuesday to consider a new strategy for managing the city’s homeless population should strike anyone as a reasonable decision. Although it will, if enacted, cost money, it will certainly be a smaller price to pay, economically...

|on 12/20/2014

Editorials

The reaction of local tribal leaders earlier this month to the latest memorandum from the Justice Department on marijuana enforcement illustrates an important point: However desirable the end of prohibition may be for the people of Humboldt County at large, it will not come without costs — decriminalizing cannabis cultivation improperly can wreak still more devastating damage on the environment. Leaders from the Yurok and Hoopa tribes took pains to remind the public at...

|on 12/20/2014

Editorials

Fifty years ago this weekend, Humboldt and Del Norte counties experienced “The Thousand Year” flood — a storm that would forever change life on the North Coast. Although numbers cannot begin to sum up the scope of the disaster, those associated with the December 1964 flood still shock: 29 people dead. 8,400 cattle killed. Around 2,400 residences, 400 small businesses and more than 1,100 farm buildings destroyed or heavily damaged, and 7,900 families suffering...

|on 12/19/2014

Editorials

The Six Rivers Marine Corps League’s Eureka-based Toys for Tots program is looking to spare 6,000 children the sadness of waking up to no presents under the tree, empty stockings, and unchecked holiday wish lists. You can, too. The local branch of Toys for Tots — a United States Marine Corps Reserve program founded in 1947 to distribute Christmas toys to needy children — is looking for about 10,000 new, unwrapped toys and stocking stuffers for children up to age 13...